Clown

Entertainment / Literature / Clown: (1) A fool or rural bumpkin in Shakespearean vocabulary. Examples of this type of clown include Lance, Bottom, Dogberry, and other Shakespearean characters. (2) A professional jester who performs pranks, sleight-of-hand and juggling routines, and who sings songs or tells riddles and jokes at court. By convention, such jesters were given considerable leeway to speak on nearly any topic (even criticizing court policy) as long as the criticism was veiled in riddles and wordplay. Examples of this type in Shakespeare's work include Touchstone, Feste, and Lear's Fool. Cf. Fool.
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Other Words for Clown

Clown Noun Plural Synonyms: jester, fool, zany, comic, comedian, funny man
Clown Noun Synonyms: buffoon, boor, rustic, yahoo, oaf, lout, clod, dolt, bumpkin, clodhopper, provincial, peasant, yokel, lummox, jerk, galoot or galloot, hick
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Jig

Entertainment / Literature / Jig: (possibly from Old French giguer, 'to dance, to kick, to gambol') In Renaissance drama, a jig was a song-and-dance performance by a clown and/or other actors at the conclusion of a play. The dances we MORE

Zani

Entertainment / Literature / Zani: A stock character in the commedia dell'arte, the zani was a buffoonish servant, a jester, a butt of jokes, i.e., what twentieth-century entertainment would call a 'stooge.' The modern English word zan MORE

Fool

Entertainment / Literature / Fool: Originally a jester-at-court who would entertain the king and nobles, the court jester was often a dwarf or a mentally incompetent individual. His role was to amuse others with his physical or mental MORE